CHAPTER VI

SALT-GLAZED WARE--STAFFORDSHIRE

The originality of English Salt-glazed Ware--What is Salt glaze?--Early Salt-glaze--The classes of Salt-glaze--Its decadence and its extinction--Prices of Salt-glazed Ware.

The fine salt-glazed stoneware of Staffordshire which was made during the greater part of the eighteenth century is something in art of which the English potter may very justly be proud. It is remotely derived from the fine Flemish and Rhenish decorated stoneware, but the connection ends with the common qualities of being glazed with salt and of being extremely hard, almost so hard as to resist a file. But in the Staffordshire salt-glazed ware the body became almost of a porcelain-like quality. It was able to be made as thin as stamped silver, and in the thinnest portions of the pieces it is translucent like porcelain. Indeed, since the days of Elers (whom Dwight termed a silversmith) earthenware, or rather stoneware, took some of its details in form and in ornament from the worker in silver.

The applied ornament of Elers stamped with a brass die suggests the metal worker, and, with the models of the school of Astbury before them, Staffordshire potters followed the same methods. It is not astonishing to find the moulded designs with their intricate patterns in the newer school of potters of salt-glaze ware--which in its best period (1720-1740) relied solely on form and not on colour, being a dull, creamy white--emulating the fine work of the silversmith. It was only a natural striving in the new generation of potters of the Whieldon school, with fresh inventions in clays and glazes and moulds, to cast about them for better and worthier ideals than Toft had, and fresher models than stoneware Bellarmines which had been in circulation in the country since Tudor days.

Silver models provided many a fine shape for Wedgwood, his cream ware and his basalt teapots are bodily taken from Sheffield. But imitativeness has always been the curse of English potters. Wedgwood copied in jasper ware the cameo work of the classic world, and the whole of Staffordshire to a man commenced to pot on similar lines. Through the last decades of the eighteenth century, and well into the nineteenth, thousands of vases and jugs were turned out as echoes of Etruria in Staffordshire which, as its name denotes, was but an echo of something centuries earlier. Bow called itself "New Canton," and Worcester slavishly copied Chinese mandarins and exotic birds, coined in the brain of some Oriental potter. Chelsea copied Dresden, and Lowestoft copied the Bow and Worcester copies of Chinese originals, and the list could be prolonged _ad nauseam_.

Indeed, this curse lies very heavy on the collector who has to devote a great portion of his energy to research in order to determine who first made certain models. This, unfortunately, tends to divert the study of old earthenware, its artistic qualities and its technical triumphs, into channels more or less contentious. The literature of English ceramics is rapidly becoming like many of the editions of Shakespeare, where a few lines of text stand as an oasis in a desert of commentators' controversial opinions.

It is, therefore, refreshing to find, as one does undoubtedly find in Staffordshire salt-glazed ware, one of the most remarkable and original outbursts in English art pottery that has taken place. This delicate stoneware is as thin as some of the Oriental porcelain, and possesses a grace and symmetry peculiarly its own. In some of its decorations it bears a likeness to Chinese work. This does not detract from its high place as a ceramic record. On the contrary, this similitude is a tribute to pay to its artistic excellence, for there is very little earthenware that came out of Staffordshire that will bear comparison with the work of the Chinese potter.

=What is Salt glaze?=--We know that many of the stoneware Bellarmines and Rhenish jugs were glazed with salt. It was a process known on the Continent at a very early date, some authorities place it as early as the twelfth century. But it was not until the second half of the sixteenth century that German and Flemish potters used this salt glaze to any great extent. We have seen, in the chapter on stoneware, that the appearance in the mottling and in the orange-skin-like surface is due to the action of salt glaze.

To cover pottery with an outer surface has been practised from earliest times either by the use of some glassy material or by powdered lead. Glazing with common salt was quite a new departure by the English potters. In order for this salt glaze to be used there must be a very high temperature, so high, as a matter of fact, that it would melt or soften in the kiln most English earthenware. This is where stoneware in its body differs from earthenware; it is what is termed "refractory," that is to say, it is not readily fusible. Stoneware is not always glazed. Elers did not glaze his red ware, and Wedgwood did not glaze his basalt or black ware. Stoneware can also be glazed with other processes than the salt glaze, but, as a rule, stoneware is associated with salt glaze.

Without entering too tediously into the exact steps by which salt glazing is performed, it may be roughly described as follows. Other glazes, such as lead, are applied to the surface of the ware prior to its entry into the kiln for firing, but in salt glaze the glaze is incorporated with the ware while it is actually in the kiln. Towards the end of the firing common salt (chloride of sodium) is thrown into the kiln, which is packed with the ware, through apertures in the kiln which has to be specially designed for salt-glaze use. At the high temperature of the kiln (about 2,190° Fahr.) the salt is volatised and its vapour penetrates the saggers (that is, the earthen vessels containing the pieces being made), which have perforated sides to enable this vapour to form on the surface of the pieces being fired. This vapour chemically unites with the silica largely present in the body of the stoneware, and forms a silicate on the surface of the ware. That is to say, the stoneware becomes coated with a thin layer or glaze of sodic silicate or soda-glass.

This chemical action taking place simultaneously with the final firing of the ware before its removal from the kiln incorporates the glaze with the body of the ware itself. It is this combination which causes the minute depressions or tiny pin-holes in all stoneware from Bellarmines down to the finely and nearly translucent salt-glazed Staffordshire ware which has a surface like that of leather. The same multitudinous pin-hole surface is characteristic of Oriental porcelain, which like stoneware is fired at a very high temperature, and the glaze and the body completed at one firing in the _grand feu_. Though, of course, this is not salt glaze, nor is the surface other than as smooth as glass to the touch, although under a strong glass or even to the naked eye these pin-holes are easily discernible.

At the present day salt glaze is mainly used for such ware as ink-pots, drain pipes, insulators for telegraphic instruments, and common ginger-beer bottles. The connection between John Dwight, of Christ Church, Oxford (Master of Arts), the creator of the magnificent bust of _Prince Rupert_, the glory of the ceramic collection at the British Museum, and between John Philip Elers, godson of Queen Christina, and this sad array of utilitarian nondescripts, is not a pleasing subject for reflection. It is sad to think that these triumphs have been won in vain by the genius of the old potters over the plastic clay. What an ignoble ending to the long chain of experiments! When Dwight destroyed his secret memoranda it is as though he foresaw the era of the drainpipe.

=Early Salt-glaze.=--The early stages of the manufacture of salt-glazed ware were crude and experimental. There is some connection between the finely potted lustrous stoneware of Nottingham and "Crouch ware," the undeveloped form of the later phase of finely-potted Staffordshire salt-glaze ware. This "Crouch" ware represents the transitional stage between the ordinary brown stoneware and the later drab or greyish white examples. Crouch ware at its earliest was not made in Staffordshire till 1690, and there is presumptive evidence to show that salt-glaze brown ware was made at some pot-works at Crich, near Matlock, Derbyshire; and that the same or similar clay was used by the Staffordshire potters who gave it that name, and there is proof that the Crich pottery existed as early as 1717, and Nottingham has dated pieces as early as 1700.

On the face of it, in spite of Josiah Wedgwood's letter in connection with the medallion to John Philip Elers, there is little evidence to go upon to credit the Elers with having made salt-glaze ware at all. Excavations on the site of their factory at Bradwell Wood have only resulted in the discovery of fragments of their unglazed red ware, "red porcelain" as it was called, and experts have pronounced their oven as being unfitted for salt-glaze operations.

On the whole, therefore, in accordance with the latest research, one is inclined to come to the conclusion that the Brothers Elers did not invent Staffordshire salt-glazed ware. If they made it at all, they made very few examples. The red ware is theirs as far as Staffordshire is concerned, although Dwight had something to say on that score when he charged them and Nottingham potters and others with infringing his patents.

Among the early makers of salt-glazed ware were Astbury and Twyford, and Thomas Astbury, son of the former, being associated with the introduction of ground flint into the body in 1720. Thomas Billing in 1722, and Ralph Shaw in 1732, made further improvements in the body. Dr. Thomas Wedgwood and Aaron Wood, and Thomas Whieldon and Ralph Daniel, of Cobridge, were all well-known makers of this ware, the latter having introduced plaster-of-paris moulds in lieu of alabaster, and being further notable for his enamelled decorations in colour, in the period 1743 to 1750, which attempted to vie with the contemporary coloured porcelain. William Littler, of Longton, used a similar blue to that which he used on the porcelain at Longton Hall.

At this date the ware became white in colour, and took its pleasing forms so dear to connoisseurs.

=The Classes of Salt-glaze.=--In its various styles salt-glazed ware may be roughly divided into periods. The experimental stage was over in 1720. From 1720 to 1740 the undecorated or white examples were made, depending on form for their beauty. These had applied ornamentation stamped with metal dies, or made in separate moulds and affixed to the body to be decorated (similar to the Elers style). It is during this period that some of the finest pieces were made with sharp, clear-cut designs. Later, when moulds were made of plaster-of-paris in place of alabaster, the design became blurred.

Among the most beautiful designs in this plain white ware having raised ornament are sauceboats, pickle trays, sweetmeat dishes, teapoys or tea canisters, and teapots; these latter are of a great variety of shapes, many having shell ornament, very exquisitely moulded, and others being of hexagonal shape divided into compartments. There is, too, a trace of the grotesque discernible in some of these teapots and a subtle humour too rarely found in English pottery. There are those of the camel form, such as the specimen illustrated (p. 197). The peculiar handle made by hand is very noticeable, usually such handles are snipped off at the end. Others are of the shape of a house, and many types of this design occur. Some are in the form of a squirrel. Then there are the heart-shaped teapots with the spout incongruously representing an arm resting on the neck of a swan. These teapots were supposed to have been made for lovers. We give an illustration (p. 197) of one of these heart teapots, and it will be seen how a slight touch of gilding has been added to heighten the effect on the embossed portions showing the fruit. Of course the cauliflower teapot exhibits a touch of humour, too, but this form is rarely found in salt glaze. The bright natural colours of that interesting vegetable were reproduced by Whieldon, who made this type as well as melon and pineapple teapots and coffee-pots. The vivid green and yellow glaze of this cauliflower ware is of the period when Josiah Wedgwood was with Whieldon and is held to be young Josiah's invention. He afterwards made similar ware himself.

The next stage was the slight use of colour in what is termed "scratched" blue. This style of decoration is the opposite of the relief ornaments. The pattern was incised with a sharp instrument on the piece, in the lines thus cut cobalt blue was applied with a sponge. Birds and foliage are the typical form of decorations to pieces of this style from 1740 to about 1750.

From 1745 to 1750 William Littler introduced his cobalt blue ware over which decorations in black or white were enamelled or gilded, and such pieces are rare. (See illustration p. 201.)

Then comes the period in which colour was in full swing. From 1740 to 1760 enamelling in colours was extensively used. It was employed on plain surfaces, or as a touch of colour to ornaments in relief. There is no doubt that some of these coloured examples are very beautiful. It is not necessary to dethrone the plain white ware from its place of honour. With later developments it was found that colour could be used with artistic advantage, nor is there any deterioration of the ware from an æsthetic point of view in this colour work when in the hands of skilled craftsmen.

Similarly transfer-printing was recognised as a suitable means of decoration, and pieces are found with printed designs of black or red or puce. The head of the King of Prussia is found on some specimens of this type. Of course this is later in date, and must have been subsequent to 1760, when Sadler and Green invented transfer-printing at Liverpool. Doubtless these pieces entered into competition with the new colour ware then in vogue, which drove the salt-glaze ware from the market, and killed the most artistic and original productions the English potter had ever made.

The industry had by this time grown to great dimensions, and apparently the Staffordshire potters were turning out this salt-glazed ware as fast as they could, no very good sign that good work was to last much longer. Nor is all the enamel work English; two Dutchmen were secretly employed at Burslem to do this enamelling in colour. But the secret spread, and we find two Leeds painters, Robinson and Rhodes, doing enamelling on the salt-glazed ware for the Staffordshire potters.

We are enabled to reproduce a very fine example of enamelled salt-glaze ware having the inscription "James and Martha Jinkcuson," and dated 1764. It stands as a fine specimen of its class. The colours of the flowers and insects are very rich, being, as is usual, enamelled over the salt-glaze ground. Dated salt-glazed ware is always uncommon, and an example of such fine colouring in such perfect condition stands as a rare and splendid specimen.

There is yet another style in salt-glaze in which the whole surface of the piece to be decorated is coated with a slip of another colour, and the decoration cut through it to show the white body beneath. This belongs to the last period, 1760 to 1780, as also does the basket work for which Aaron Wood, and R. J. Baddeley, of Shelton, are noted for their fine patterns. Incised work in imitation of Japanese work was also prevalent during the last period of salt-glaze work.

We illustrate another very important salt-glazed piece, a teapot enamelled in colours having what is known as a "crabstock" handle, spout, and lid. It is remarkable as being incised with the name "John Toft" (see p. 205). Undoubtedly this is a member of the celebrated Toft family, whose dishes, marked "Ralph Toft" and "Thomas Toft" in slip-ware, gave the generic name to a class of ware. It is not improbable that one of the Tofts modelled the celebrated salt-glaze "pew group" in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It exhibits the peculiarly quaint doll-like faces with beady eyes associated with Toft dishes.

In the group illustrated (p. 201) there is one enamelled jug. The two dishes show another type of plain salt-glaze. The teapot shows incised work on the broad band around it, but no indication of colour. The coffee-pot is the well-known squirrel form, and the dark teapot on left is enamelled in blue by Thomas Littler, and is a rare example.

In colouring the salt-glazed vase in bright turquoise blue and pink and green, with its Oriental design, strongly suggests the enamel work of Limoges (see p. 209). It stands in the eighteenth century in the same relationship to the metal enameller as does a modern French factory at Bordeaux, Messrs. Viellard & Cie., whose work in coarse earthenware simulates the _cloisonné_ enamel.

The punch bowl illustrated has a portrait of the Young Pretender. In date it is, of course, not earlier than 1745, the year of the Rebellion in Scotland on behalf of the Pretender, and when his son Charles Edward landed and defeated the royal forces near Edinburgh. This punch bowl tells its story of stirring days, when Jacobites secretly met at night in quiet manor houses and drank a toast to the Stuart claimant. In public by a kind of subtle jest when they were driven to drink the health of "the king," they by a specious mental reservation flourished their glasses over any water on the table, the hidden meaning being "the King--over the water." But here is a punch bowl which was probably brought out for the sworn partisans to drink to the pious memory of the exiled Stuarts. There was always, even when the Stuart cause was a lost one, a tender recollection of "Prince Charlie," the "Young Chevalier." The lilting lines of Bobbie Burns in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, always awaken romantic associations, and bowls such as this were relics of something that had been, and without doubt in its day this same bowl has filled the glasses of a loyal company who drank the health of his Gracious Majesty George the Third.

As we have pointed out in the introductory note there are many monuments in clay on the collector's shelf which punctuate the sonorous phrases of the historian. Such pieces are exceptionally interesting in aiding the reflective mind to recreate the events of a former day which touched the life roots of the nation.

PRICES.

SALT GLAZE. £ s. d.

Teapoy, square shaped, decorated with scratched flowers in blue. With female half-length figure (within a Chippendale frame), inscribed "Martha Saymore September ye 25th 1770" (5-1/4 in. high). Bond, Ipswich, April, 1906 11 0 0

Bowl and cover and milk jug decorated, rich blue ground. Sotheby, June, 1906 26 0 0

Teapot, brilliantly enamelled in colour with roses, auriculas, &c., with turquoise handle and spout. Sotheby, June, 1906 50 0 0

Teapot, crimson ground, with white panels with flowers in colour. Sotheby, June, 1906 26 0 0

Teapot and cover, modelled as house with royal arms over door. Sotheby, February, 1907 5 12 6

Teapot and cover, modelled as a camel. Sotheby, February, 1907 6 6 0

Jug and cover, hexagonal, with subjects in relief. Sotheby, February, 1907 4 4 0

Teapot, enamelled in colours, with portrait of Frederick King of Prussia; on reverse, spread eagle holding ribbon with inscription, "Semper Sublimis." Sotheby, March, 1907 21 10 0

Milk jug and cover, enamelled in colours in a continuous landscape with castle, obelisk, and other buildings. Sotheby, March, 1907 7 15 0

Vessel, modelled as a _Bear_, head forming cup. Sotheby, March, 1907 4 4 0

Basin with raised subjects in panels. Sotheby, July, 1908 13 5 0

Teapot and cover, enamelled in colours, with roses, &c. Sotheby, July, 1908 8 0 0

Teapot and cover, dark blue ground. Sotheby, July, 1908 8 5 0

Coffee-pot and cover (small), decorated in enamel colours with Chinese figures. Sotheby, July, 1908 14 15 0

VII

JOSIAH WEDGWOOD